Australians on the Front Line

12/03/2007

This week we put to our panel of former senior defence personnel and strategic analysts the questions of Australia's involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan - when will be the right time to bring our troops home, how will we know we achieved our aims? Also have we left ourselves vulnerable to, prepared for, or able to prevent a terrorist attack at home? And what is our role in our own region, should we be playing the sherriff of the South Paciifc?

With Australian troops in Iraq and more deployed to Afghanistan how do we recognise and measure when victory has been achieved?

What significance does the British decision to withdraw some troops from Iraq have for Australia? Do we need our own exit strategy, if only to signal that our role there is not open-ended? What are Australia’s options for leaving Iraq and do the solutions include diplomacy. Already this month Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has met the Saudi King Abdullah and only a few days ago there was a regional meeting between Iraq, Iran, Syria and the US. Is this a breakthrough or false hope?
Afghanistan is no less critical with intelligence suggesting that the Taliban is gearing up for a significant do-or-die offensive across the country. The US President George W Bush has now decided to send another 8 000 troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, on top of the 21 000 reinforcements announced 2 months ago. The new reinforcements will bring the number of American tropps to about 165 000. What happens if the Taliban offensive puts them more in harm’s way? Should Australia send more combat troops to Afghanistan? Will it ever be possible to both defeat the Taliban and establish a popular democratic government? Are we a country that can’t say no to our big brothers?

What should our role be in the South Pacific region?

Our neighbours in the Pacific region receive a lot of assistance from Australia but are we really responsible for what happens in East Timor, the Solomons, PNG, Fiji, Tonga and other nations nearby? Is it the right kind of support? Both our Federal police and the military are involved but have their roles been properly defined?
Do we have the means to promote good government within the region and have we identified the real problems? Is there a role for us in promoting social and economic reforms? If we don’t get it right will our deployments of troops and Federal police be labelled as colonial interfering? Our approach in the Pacific is a work in progress, how do we rate it’s success? The Prime Minister, John Howard, has said that we will keep a presence until the job is done but how will we know? What should be the benchmark?
In particular, our involvement in East Timor has angered the region’s true superpower Indonesia, how do we handle this conflict?

Are we prepared or capable of preventing a terrorist attack in Australia?

Just recently the Director General of ASIO warned that “the threat of terrorism within Australia has remained unchanged since late 2001…and that a terrorist attack is feasible and could well occur.”
So how likely is a terror attack in Australia or against our people in nearby nations?
Are the measures the government has taken to protect Australians against terrorism the best way to tackle the issue? Are our intelligence agencies adequately resourced and up to the task of identifying and countering threats? The Sydney Olympics ran smoothly but how ready are we for world leaders attending the APEC meeting this September? Is there a direct correlation between our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the terrorist threat to Australia? Are the ADF, Special Forces, and intelligence agencies stretched too far in other regions putting us at more risk back home?

Panellists

David Fawcett: Mr David Fawcett, Liberal Member for Wakefield (SA) was elected to the House of Representatives in 2004 after serving more than 22 years in the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The former Defence Force test pilot was a Lieutenant Colonel and his last ADF role was Commanding Officer at the Royal Australian Air Force, Aircraft Research and Development Unit (ARDU), where he was responsible for the conduct of experimental flight tests in support of the RAAF and Army. Part of Fawcett’s work at ARDU involved the flight test of night vision devices, including trials with agencies in the UK and US and the development of the aviation night counter-terrorist capability for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Fawcett also he served in the 1st Aviation Regiment where he was involved in operations across Australia and in Papua New Guinea.

Hugh White: Hugh White is a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University. His principal research interests are Australian strategic and defence policy, and regional and global security issues that most directly affect Australia. White was previously Deputy Secretary for Strategy in the Department of Defence 1995–2000 and an intelligence analyst and Head of the Strategic Analysis Branch, ONA 1992–1993. White was senior adviser on International Affairs to Prime Minister Bob Hawke 1990–1991, senior adviser to the Defence Minister Kim Beazley 1984–1990, and foreign affairs and defence correspondent on the Sydney Morning Herald 1983-1984. He studied philosophy at Melbourne and Oxford Universities.

Peter Tinley: Peter Tinley is a former SAS officer and is now the Labor candidate for Stirling in W.A. for this year’s Federal Election. Peter served 17 of his 25 years in the Army with the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS). He has held appointments from Trooper to Operations Officer. During his service Peter participated and commanded an extensive number of international operations. His final appointment held from 2001 to February 2004, was as Operations Officer for the SAS. This period was marked by an unprecedented number of operations from peace and security on Bougainville to high intensity conventional warfare in Iraq. He was the lead tactical planner for Australia’s Special Forces contribution to both the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. In the later operation he was appointed as the Deputy Commander of the 550 strong Australian Joint Special Forces Task Group. In 2003, Tinley’s service was recognised with his appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).

Dr. Rod Lyon: Dr Rod Lyon is director of the Strategy and International Program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). In early 2005 he was appointed to the Australian Foreign Minister’s National Consultative Committee on International Security. He is also a member of the editorial board for Security Challenges, the journal of the Kokoda Foundation. Lyon was previously a senior lecturer at the School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, where he taught undergraduate courses on Conflict in the International System, Military and Politics, and Problems of Asia-Pacific Security, and a postgraduate course on International Security. His research interests cover a range of strategic and foreign policy issues, including the new international security environment, nuclear weapons strategy and Australian security. He was awarded a Fulbright Professional Scholarship in 2004 and spent time as a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Australian and New Zealand Studies at Georgetown University. In June 2005 he published Alliance Unleashed: Australia and the US in a New Strategic Age.

Cartoons

This week's gallery from our in-house cartoonist Warren Brown, who produced these cartoons during the course of the program.